Tag Archives: humpback whale

A humpback whale washed up near the Lynnhaven Fishing Pier on Sunday, the first in the area since National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries declared an Unusual Mortality Event for humpback whale strandings along the Atlantic Coast. The juvenile female was at least 2 years old, measured 30 feet long and weighed about 6 tons, said Susan Barco, research coordinator for the Virginia Aquarium’s research and conservation division. click here to read the story 10:36

A cruise ship reached an Alaska port with a surprise on its bow: the carcass of a humpback whale. The Grand Princess, a 290 metre ship pulled into Ketchikan yesterday with the marine mammal lodged on its submerged, bulbous bow, a device designed to avoid wave-making. Princess spokesman Brian O’Connor said the company was surprised and saddened to discover the whale. “It is unknown how or when this happened as the ship felt no impact,” he said in a statement. “It is also unknown, at this time, whether the whale was alive or already deceased before becoming lodged on the bow.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is investigating the incident. click here to read the story 15:28

An eighth North Atlantic right whale has been found dead and another is entangled in fishing gear in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Marine Animal Response Society said in a Facebook post.
All eight deaths have occurred in the gulf since the beginning of June, which experts are calling an “unprecedented event.” click here to read the story

U.S. officials are lifting a ban on some whale disentanglement efforts after briefly banning the practice that last week led to the death of a Canadian fisherman. But the ban will stay in effect for right whales, “whose unpredictable behavior is particularly challenging during rescue attempts,” Chris Oliver, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said Tuesday. click here to read the story

A crew of 20-25 people spent eight hours Tuesday freeing a juvenile humpback whale that had been entangled in fishing gear off the coast of Crescent City since Thursday. click here to read the story 11:30

An unusually high number of dead humpback whales washing ashore along the Atlantic coast has prompted marine mammal experts to open a federal investigation of the cause. But the cause may never be fully determined, according to experts. Since January 2016, 41 of the mammals have washed ashore from North Carolina to Maine. The only cause of death determined so far are cases in which the whales showed signs of being hit by a vessel. But ship strikes only account for a quarter of the deaths. The high number of deaths forced the country’s top marine agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to declare an “Unusual Mortality Event,” prompting the federal probe. click here to read the story 19:57

A dead humpback whale has been found stuck in equipment at an empty fish farm on B.C.’s central coast. Marine Harvest Canada says in a news release that the whale was found on Nov. 15 entangled in an anchor support line at a site in Sheep Passage. The company says staff and contractors were in the process of dismantling the site’s anchoring system after another whale got entangled in the equipment in September. The previous whale was safely released, and the entire site is now dismantled. The federal fisheries department has been notified about the dead humpback and will be investigating the incident. Marine Harvest Canada says before the incident in September, nothing like this had ever occurred in their 30 years of operation, and engineers are now testing all their sites to prevent this from happening again. link 16:46

NOAA Fisheries NMFS proposed today to reclassify the humpback whale into 14 distinct population segments under the Endangered Species Act, providing a more tailored conservation approach for U.S. fisheries managers. Protection and restoration efforts over the past 40 years have led to an increase in numbers and growth rates for humpback whales in many areas. The humpback whale is currently listed as endangered throughout its range. The proposed rule finds that ten of those 14 populations (see below) do not warrant ESA listing. Read it here 14:41

NMFS issues this final rule to amend the regulations implementing the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction. This rule revises the management measures for reducing the incidental mortality and serious injury to the North Atlantic right whale, humpback whale, and fin whale in commercial trap/pot and gillnet fisheries to further the goals of the MMPA, and the ESA. . Read final rule in the Federal Register 18:49

According to the IUCN, the global population of humpbacks is approximately 80,000. That is broken down to 18,000-20,000 in the North Pacific, 50,000 in the Southern Hemisphere, and some 12,000 in the North Atlantic. Before hunting was banned, there were barely 1,500 humpbacks in the North Pacific. Today’s numbers are a clear indicator of how successful conservation measures can be when they are rigidly kept. Read more here 10:43

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

The Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) says the FFAW-Unifor’s last-minute objections to proposed regulations governing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) off Read More »

The National Marine Fisheries Service on Thursday classified as endangered and threatened four distinct populations of hammerhead sharks. The new classification responds to a petition filed Read More »